By Doel Sengupta
Hey there! You have been born. That is the most exciting thing that happened today. You looked into your mother's eyes. There is so much love and care and strength there. All this love, care and strength is being transmitted to you for the days ahead.
You look so so beautiful. So pretty chirping with the birds. Since you love birds so much your most beautiful Dimma has named you Doel. What a sweetly phonetic name!
Your Dadu's home in Delhi is abuzz with activity because you have arrived. Your grandfather is so excited he has stocked the house with goodies and fruits as treats for everyone. Your father is so elated. He thinks that you are the most beautiful thing he has ever laid eyes on. He wants to call you Priyadarshani but in the days ahead your mother and aunt are going to protest this name vehemently. Growing up you would have wanted to be called Priyadarshani. It's Holi. The day you have arrived. And friends throng the house with flowers, sweets and colours to celebrate this bumper arrival.
Your mother is a young beautiful woman and she feels quite fatigued. You are taken to Bombay in a grand way in the train as your Thama awaits you. Till her dying days till the age of 92 your Thama made it quite clear that you were the person she loved the most. Your father is also quite emphatic about this and often told you that you were the apple of his eyes and that he loved you the most.
Your mother and Thama have a strained relationship with egos clashing and your mother being young takes Thama's criticisms so to heart that it breaks her heart.
Your cousins love you. You are Ketonedada's favourite little cousin. Everybody calls you beautiful despite the lazy eye that is becoming apparent by the age of two. Even before going to school with the help of your mother you have learnt to read. You have few toys but many many books. For the next 23 years since you were born your life is a tale of reading interesting things and writing creatively.
Your mother is a college teacher and your father is a very busy engineer.
At the age of 3 arrives the love of your life, your little brother, whose arrival itself is a mark of courage.
It's a landmark year. It's also the year you start going to school, a place where you feel most at home. And then calamity strikes.
A guy, college-going, has his eyes on you and abuses you over a period of time. You stop going down to play with your friends and you tell your mother about these incidents.
Your father beats the guy up in the middle of the night.
You remember being questioned by the police with the help of a beautiful lady in a beautiful saree (could be a lawyer, could be a child psychiatrist) about what really happened.
The guy turns out to have underworld links and your father receives death threats, and his friends advise him to get off the case. That's all you know. What did your father really do you never find out. Whatever he did, he tried. Growing up as you try to process this, you feel your parents could have done more and this feels like the first sign of betrayal. But they did do everything by focusing on things that could be done-- By watching me as I mimicked teachers, or reading out my poetry to all who came to the house or by making me sit for singing riyaz and loving me unconditionally. Of course, as Thama left the house around Buo's birth, this and my abuse must have been the tipping point for Ma's depression. You, my young child, often caught her crying and talking to herself as an escape from her grief. She was and still is astoundingly beautiful inside out.
She did everything. She was always by my side and Buo's side when not working in college to protect us and spend quality time with us.
She did when very overwhelmed beat us up. That she did. And those scars are still healing. But may be being young she didn't know any better. She was often bitter and complaining. I know today I can stop blaming her because to err is human.
I spent my days growing up playing, reading and writing.
I got selected to be a state level athlete in school. Of course I was a good athlete but I wasn't extremely passionate about sports. Buro on the other hand grew to love sports watching me train and has become a sports marketeer and coach today. I am proud of him.
My relationship with him grew troubled in his teens when he grew stronger, and sometimes beat me up and blamed me for all his misfortunes. Till date he sometimes resorts to violence and often to blaming me for everything. May be he should sit and write a letter to his inner child too.
Academic achievement came easily to me and more easily to Buro till his appendix burst when I was 12. That was the year Eshna was also born. I was very sad to see Buro unwell in Nanavati hospital for over a month. I have known a place of love in my heart all my life like Michael Jackson said; that place has often healed me and will continue to.
Buro fought hard those days and is healthy and alive to tell his tale today. My protectiveness and care grew for Buro those days and there were complaints about me and Buro having become very naughty in school after he recovered. Buro slipped academically and I became a good girl focusing all my energies on goodness, being righteous and virtuous as a I read a lot of religious and spiritual literature.
Chumkimashi often compared me and Buro and spoilt Eshna thoroughly and viewed me unfavourably. I could have taken her judgments and criticisms more maturely then and I still have trouble doing that but I'm getting there.
I grew to love theatre and was a part of many plays in school winning awards for my performances and many praises from well-known actors and others. That kindled a desire in me to become an actress, a dream that was thwarted by Pa when I was very young and received a few offers to act professionally, because he felt that the film industry wasn't a safe place for a girl to be.
Later, he didn't let me study at St Stephen's saying that Delhi is not safe for girls. That has taught me not to let our fears get the better of us.
After Buro recovered and I was 13 I had an accident at home and my vagina got swollen up. I was also in a nursing home for several weeks recovering and missed an entire term in school. I studied the entire term's syllabus by myself. I was very proactive then. But the next year I left the sports squad in the 9th grade.
By the time I finished school I had two best friends Salvia and Archana. Archana never kept in touch and ignored my calls after school and in recent years, after the lockdown, I have lost touch with Salvia. That was a brutal rejection by Archana, that I still need healing from. Rejection can be very hard and I've often taken it very personally. But at the end of the day it's the rejector's problem because the rejectee has no problems and has tried enough. To try itself is a mark of success and integrity.
I went to Mithibai College for high school and was part of one of Ramu's first few plays, my first big professional play. That year was so exciting.
Ma taught me French in college and in the evening dropped me for rehearsals in the Kalina campus. I did not want to study in Mithibai. It was either Xavier's or Stephen's for me but Pa would not hear of it.
Pa had this Tantrik guy coming to the house those years till college got over and he used to touch me inappropriately.
This experience made me a gawky, chirpy, nerdy girl and I bloomed out of proportion and awkwardly.
Acting with Ramu and the other guys was enthralling. But that soon came to a halt because Dimma was diagnosed with cancer and passed away the subsequent year.
I was very quiet in college and savored all the street food around me on the little pocket money I got. I was viewed as a nerd by my college friends but I thought I was interesting.
Mithibai and then Xavier's were a haven of joy for me as I won awards at many college fests for dramatics and writing.
Being in Xaviers and studying Life Sciences was something I didn't want to do but I grew interested in Biology. I felt more beautiful in Xavier's where I felt safe and loved. I ignored the troubles at home and finally did well academically but left science. I made a lifelong friend in my research guide Dr Arunan and found Qudsiya and Sathvika, Subbu and Van and the whole gang. Qudsiya became my best friend till she migrated to Canada before the lockdown. My personality developed. Like mom even I was a critical and judgmental and grieving and complaining young woman.
I acted out in many ways after college and I see a psychiatrist because I've done drugs, hallucinated as the journalist that I became.
I was respected in the newsroom but I was hurting inside.
It's time to pick up the garbage and discard it today because below it all there are gems.
I dated guys, broke up, didn't get married or have children, even was forced upon a few times but I've come through.
Now that Qudsiya is far away I call Arun my best friend.
Sometimes the past casts its snare on me, and sometimes nightmares haunt me but I'm not scared of the dark anymore.
Many friends came into my life, many left and some remain.
And today I seek to become unburdened and lighter and cast my net on love, happiness and success. I don't know what the future holds but whatever it is, it better be good.
Child you were loved. You are loved. And know that love can move mountains.
